Very few of Japan's many film directors are women—this unfortunate fact
is not too surprising, given the historical realities of gender issues in
East Asia, but it does make the handful of women film makers there
that much more important for the alternative visions their work can
provide. A good case in point comes from Kawase Naomi who, over the past
fourteen years, has made eight films, all infused with a lyricism that is
as beautiful as it is entrancing. This lyricism comes not only from the
stories which her films tell, but they way in which her camera tells them.

Sharasojyu is one such film that utilises a handheld camera
throughout to tell its story of a family overcoming the mysterious
disappearance of one of their sons as a child. This disappearance occurs
at the beginning of the film: as Shun (Fukunaga Kyōhei) and his brother,
Kei (Yamamoto Masashi), wash off the ink that has stained them at a
printing shop, Kei runs off through the streets of their residential
neighbourhood in Nara. Shun follows, but rounding a corner, loses sight of
Kei, who disappears, never to return. Years later, Shun's mother, Reiko (Kawase
Naomi) is pregnant and very close to term; Shun's father, Taku (Namase
Katsuhisa) is busy preparing for the local basara matsuri; and Shun is in
love with Yu (Hyōdo Yuka).

This is a very simple film that derives its momentum neither from its
plot—which after all is quite slight—nor, even, from studying its
characters' psychology—for the film remains resolutely external to the
characters' inner selves. Instead, the momentum comes from the fascinating
camera work which brings the viewer into intimate contact with the daily
lives of this close-knit family, and which roots the characters firmly,
safely, and confidently in the welcoming space of their Nara
neighbourhood. This camera moves with great ease around, after, and
between the characters in sequences of very long takes. The opening eight
minutes, for example, are composed of only three different shots. This
movement constitutes the camera very much as a living presence. Aided by
natural lighting, a soundtrack drawn from the ambient sounds of everyday
life, and performances that are superb in their naturalness, the film is
able to situate the viewer directly into its flow. This
situation gives to the feeling of knowing the characters to great depth,
but one
that is never obtrusive. While we never have an inner monologue to allow us
access to or to pry into a character's private thoughts, we still come to
understand the great love this family shares for each other, and the
sorrow they each harbour over the loss of Kei. The camera, moving among
the characters, captures them as they interact with the people around
them, observing them with tremendous respect. The camera, for example,
never presents the characters head-on, but always from an angle, from the
side, from behind. Focusing on the small details of this family's
lives—their garden, their faces at prayer with their neighbours, their
hands clasped as Reiko gives birth at home, surrounded by husband, son,
neighbours, and midwives—the film creates a sympathetic intimacy that
leaves us at its close feeling as if we've come to understand much about
the process of community in Japan, its method of keeping its traditions
alive, and its strength in preserving quiet hope across many years.

And indeed this film does highlight Japan throughout, from the opening
sequence dominated by the droning clang of a Buddhist priest striking his
prayer anvil, to the shots of Shun and Kei running through the streets of
their neighbourhood, touching, as they go, the buildings, houses, and
fences they pass, to the shots of the family's home, its sliding, wooden
door, steep, wooden stairs, and tatami-matted, narrow rooms. The place of
these characters and their relationship to it becomes something of a
side-story, and as the film locates, roots, the characters in their
neighbourhood, so too it locates and roots itself as part of that world.
I have rarely felt, watching a film, so much sense of presence: I could feel
the wooden door slide open before the camera, smell the tomatoes growing
in the humidity of early summer, and smell the incense burning as Reiko
and her neighbours pray together, turning between them a long string of
large rosary beads. This sense of presence captures the lived reality of
an average, suburban Japanese family with the best precision of a
sensitive ethnographer; not to problematise or explain away the family's
lives with anthropological theory but to preserve a record of the
simplicity with which they create powerful, enduring bonds between
themselves.

That these bonds are completely independent of the characters' gender
becomes one very important aspect of this film. The camera has the
remarkable ability to make gender vanish as a determinant of the social
roles of its characters. Mother and father both react with restrained
concern when the police arrive to ask the father to identify a body
believed to be Kei's; they both hold Shun as his grief overpowers him. The
camera never favours either men or women in its presentation, never
highlights or diminishes, and the story itself devotes equal time to both
male and female characters. The extreme visuality of this film presents,
without ideology or ulterior motive, the simple surface of natural life,
but behind that surface exists a depth of tradition that is inclusive,
supportive, and vital. Regardless of the ideology that does exist under
that surface, Sharasojyu presents a view of contemporary suburban Japan
that does not seek to demarcate propriety for its characters, but rather
creates for them a nurturing space in which, as individuals and members of
a community, they are able to thrive. This is the 'alternative vision' so
necessary in contemporary social discourse, and so masterfully though
simply presented here, in a work of great beauty, passion, and power.

About the Author

Tim Iles is Assistant Professor of Japanese
Studies at the University of Victoria,
British Columbia, Canada, where he teaches Japanese culture, cinema, and
language. He has an MA from the University of British Columbia in Modern
Japanese Literature, and a PhD from the University of Toronto, also in
Modern Japanese Literature. He has taught courses on Japanese literature,
theatre, culture, and cinema in Canada and the United States, and has
published articles on those subjects. He is also author of Abe Kobo: an
Exploration of his Prose, Drama, and Theatre (Fuccecio: European Press
Academic Publishers, 2000).